Solitaire
by Caroline
Summary: [GCR, implied NSR] Oneshot for the GraveshiftCSI alphabet challenge, letter 'S' obviously. Sara and the guys do some snooping.


TITLE: Solitaire  
SPOILERS: Only a minor one for "No Humans Involved" (5x10)  
KEYWORDS: GCR, implied NSR  
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Thanks as always, to my sister-kook and partner-in-crime, Gomey, for allowing me to selfishly force my fics upon her. You rule fangoriously. And for those reading this on Fan-Fiction(dot)Net, this fic was originally published closer to Christmas; hence the Christmas-y theme.

* * *

"Hey Sara!"

A loud thud was the answer Warrick Brown received upon poking his head into Grissom's office, followed by a string of muffled curses, only the last of which he could catch: "Dammit!"

He chuckled and leaned his lanky form against the door frame. "I take it you're in here, then?"

"Yeah, I'm here," Sara grumbled as she slowly rose to her feet behind her supervisor's desk, rubbing the back of her head where she'd bumped it on the filing cabinets.

"Snooping again?"

"I'm not snooping!" she immediately defended. "I'm... indulging my curiosity."

Warrick's eyebrows twitched upward. "Whatever helps you sleep at night, I guess."

"Greg said he saw it in here somewhere, but I can't find it. That little weasel better not be trying to trick me..."

"Saw what in here? Does Grissom have a new pet you're dying to see?"

She wrinkled her nose and continued to poke around the office. "Ugh, no. I can barely tolerate the sight of that fetal pig thing. I'm just glad it's not in here anymore."

He nodded. "Oh, that's right. He gave it to Catherine."

"Kinda sweet if you think about it," Nick Stokes piped up, leaning against the other side of the door frame. "Romantic, wouldn't you say, Sair?" He winked at his companion.

She raised an eyebrow and sighed out, "I suppose. In Grissom's demented way."

"Aw come on, Sara," the charming Texan continued to tease her. "Admit it -- a couple years ago, you would've found Grissom's little deranged romantic gestures endearing."

"Trying to get rid of me, Stokes?"

While Warrick rolled his eyes at the flirtations, Nick chuckled. "We'll see after this weekend with my parents. By the way, have you even _started_ packing yet? Our plane takes off just two hours after shift ends."

Sara waved her hand dismissively, still avoiding eye contact with her male colleagues as she continued nosing around Grissom's desk area. "That's plenty of time. Quit being a fuss-budget, or I'm not going."

"If you don't go, you don't get presents, plain and simple."

She sighed. "Fine. Now will you two quit hovering and help me look?"

"For what?" Warrick demanded again. "If you don't tell us what we're looking for, we won't be much help finding it."

Nick smiled and stepped into the room, joining his partner on the opposite side of Grissom's desk. He glanced back up at Warrick, who was still eyeing the situation with an air of skepticism. "She's looking for the Christmas bonus list. The rumor fairy--"

"In other words, Greg..." Warrick chimed in.

Nick nodded. "He said it was in here somewhere, and, well..." He shrugged. "You know Sara."

Warrick raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, I do. She'll stay here 'til New Year's looking for it, if that's what it takes." He gave a sigh of resignation. "Alright, alright, I'll help you look. But if Grissom walks in and catches us, Sara, the blame's all on you."

* * *

"Sara, face it, it's not in here. Greg was either lying to you, or Grissom put quite a bit of thought into hiding it." Nick's voice was strained as he pressed on the desk and hoisted himself up to a standing position once more, his knees giving quite the protest on the way.

"Like where? Where would he hide it?" Sara took Nick's proffered hand and dusted off the knees of her black dress pants while he helped her up.

He shrugged. "Somewhere only he would think to look, obviously."

As if on cue, Greg Sanders appeared in the doorway and chimed in, "Yeah. Maybe he put it in Catherine's pants."

"Greg!" Sara attempted to sound admonishing, but the chuckle that broke through destroyed the feeble attempt.

He just shrugged innocently in response to the grins he was getting. "What? Like anyone else gets to look there."

Nick rolled his eyes. "We don't even know that _Grissom_ gets to look there, Greggo," he reminded the young CSI. "That's all hearsay."

"Maybe not..." Warrick piped up, still crouched back by the filing cabinets.

The other three CSI's turned to look at him while he rose slowly, clutching an item in his hand. "Did you find the bonus list?" Sara immediately asked.

"No, but this might be even better." Warrick uncurled his fist and held out, in his upturned palm, a small, velvet box.

While Nick and Sara gasped at the item, Greg clasped his hands over his heart and sighed out wistfully, "Yes, Warrick! A thousand times yes!"

Warrick glared facetiously and muttered a quick, "Jackass," under his breath, before setting the box down on the desk blotter.

The CSI's gathered around it in a circle, gazing down upon it as if it were some mysterious oracle that held within all the secrets of the universe.

"Think it's a pair of earrings?" Sara was the first to break the silence.

"Could be Grissom's class ring from high school or college," Warrick suggested.

Nick supplied, "I've seen pendants come in boxes that small, too."

Greg glanced to each of them in turn, before shaking his head. "Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. It's damn obvious what it is."

The quartet grew silent once more as they stared down at the box, each contemplating the possibilities within. "Think we should open it?" Sara broke the silence once again, thrusting her hands into her pockets as if to physically stop herself from reaching for the box.

"I don't know," Greg murmured. "What if... what if it isn't what we're thinking? What if... it's a small vial carrying an extraterrestrial disease that Grissom's been harvesting? And if we open it, we'll unleash a deadly virus upon an unsuspecting population? And then... and then aliens will start to grow inside our bodies, harvesting our organs for sustenance and slowly eating away at us until they burst through our stomachs like in that one show."

While Greg continued to stare the box, the other three raised their heads, each giving him an identical blank look. Nick clapped him on the back of the neck. "Less 'X-Files', Greggo, more case-files."

"Sorry," he muttered sheepishly, then went back to eyeing the box with a newfound wariness.

"Are we opening it or not?" Sara asked impatiently, now rocking on her heels anxiously.

"I dunno, Sair," Nick drawled, "I mean... isn't that sort of an invasion of privacy?"

Now it was Nick's turn to be stared at. Warrick cocked his head slightly. "Moreso than what we've been doing for the past hour?"

Nick nodded. "Good point." He then sighed, blowing a puff of air through pursed lips. "So, who wants to do the honors?"

Everyone immediately looked to Greg, who held his hands up in surrender. "I am _not _going to be responsible for opening Pandora's box. Grissom will be pissed, then the government will be after me, I'll have to go into the Witness Protection Program... no way. You guys want your organs harvested by aliens, you go right ahead. I'll see ya." He bolted for the door quicker than anyone could respond, leaving Nick, Warrick, and Sara in the office.

"I'll do it," Warrick finally sighed, reaching for the box. "I was the one that found it, after all." He drew in a breath and opened the box, his eyes immediately widening. "Holy sh--"

"Lemme see!" Sara grabbed for it. She gasped when her eyes settled on what was inside. "Oh, my God."

Inside the box sat a princess-cut diamond solitaire engagement ring on a platinum band, paired with another platinum band studded with tiny princess-cut diamonds and pink tourmalines. Sara quirked an eyebrow while Nick leaned over her to get a look. "Well, whatever Grissom's bonus was, we certainly know where it _went_."

"Didn't even know they were dating," Warrick murmured to himself.

"How do we know that they are?" Nick raised his eyebrows to his colleagues in question. "Who's to say that's for Catherine?" He nodded toward the filing cabinets. "War, was there a card in there, too?"

He shrugged. "I dunno, man. I saw the ring box and everything went a little hazy."

Nick strode back over to the filing cabinets and opened the drawer Warrick had found the ring in, moving papers aside in his search. He came up with a small, red envelope, and held it up to the other two, allowing them to see Catherine's name scrawled across it in Grissom's distinctive handwriting.

"Sealed?" Sara questioned, and Nick smirked in response.

"Nope."

Warrick sighed. "Open it. Might as well go all the way with this 'invasion of privacy' thing."

Nick nodded his approval and removed the small card from inside, flipping it open to read it, the others almost able to hear Grissom's voice through Nick's drawl. "'Catherine... As I'm sure by now you've already opened all the other presents, you must have deduced just how deeply I feel for you. What I feel for you cannot even be properly put into words, at least not by me.

"'To put things simply, you are everything to me and you always have been. You are my backbone as well as my right and left hand. You are the light shed in all the darkest corners of my mind. You are my strength, and at the same time you are my weakness.

"'You are the remedy for my ailing soul. You are my heart -- today, tomorrow, and forever. Will you marry me?'"

"Wow," Sara whispered, voice clogged with emotion as she laid her hand over her heart.

Greg, who'd been loitering just outside, stepped in again after Nick had finished. "Geez, if _she_ doesn't say yes, _I_ will."

Nick smiled down at the card and placed it back inside the envelope. "I never knew Grissom had it in him."

"Yeah," Warrick chuffed. "I thought he was more in favor of the deranged romantic gestures -- fetal pigs and escorting Catherine to the morgue."

Sara looked down at the ring box in her hand and closed her fist slowly around it, snapping it shut before handing it over to Nick. "We should put this away."

He nodded in agreement and placed both items neatly in the drawer where they were found, sliding it shut just as Catherine appeared in the doorway. "Hi, guys!"

"We weren't doing anything!" Greg blurted out, his cheeks pinking.

The strawberry-blonde raised her eyebrows. "And... Merry Christmas to you too, Greggy," she replied slowly, warily. She then turned to the others. "Anyone seen Grissom?"

Three extremely quick, extremely innocent replies ran over the top of one another from Warrick, Sara, and Nick:

"Grissom? Nope."

"Nope, haven't seen him, Cat."

"Grissom who?"

Catherine furrowed her eyebrows and stepped carefully into the office, glancing to each of the four young CSI's in turn. "Ookay, you guys are scaring me. What's going on?" She planted her fists on her hips, now looking slightly irate. "Did one of his damn spiders get loose again? Because I am not going to put it away for you guys. Do it yourself."

"No, nothing like that," Sara chuckled, albeit a bit nervously, and cleared her throat. "Um, what are you doing here?"

Catherine blinked twice, then, as if remembering why she'd gone to her partner's office, her eyebrows twitched toward her hairline. "Oh! Right. Um..." She smiled to herself. "Grissom's got me on this sort of, uh, scavenger hunt... for my Christmas presents, and I think this is the last stop." She eyed the three eldest ones again. "He didn't mention anything about this to you?"

Again, the trio issued simultaneous responses:

"Say anything? Like what?"

"He didn't say anything about this. What?"

"Grissom who?"

Catherine, finally fed up, rolled her eyes. "Alright, fine. Can I have some privacy please? I'd like to open my final present without the Three Stooges and the Rumor Fairy hovering over my shoulder."

Sara nodded once, emphatically. "Absolutely you can." She turned to her male counterparts, "Guys?" and ushered them toward the door.

On their way out, they bumped into none other than the supervisor whose office they'd been poking through, and Nick pointed to him. "Ohhh, _that_ Grissom!" He looked over his shoulder to find Catherine rolling her eyes at him once again.

Grissom raised his eyebrows. "Is there another, Nicky?"

Nick shrugged and continued to push his coworkers out the door with him. "Never know. See ya Griss... Cath."

As the quartet headed down the hall, they heard their boss ask his counterpart, "Is it just me, or... do they get weirder every Christmas?"

Just before they reached the locker room, Sara stuck her arms out to either side and brought all of them to a halt. "Wait, wait!" she hissed.

"What?"

"Don't you guys wanna know what she says?"

The four of them exchanged glances before rushing quickly, but quietly, back toward Grissom's office. They were just in time to catch Catherine dropping both the card and the red envelope in surprise, tears streaming down her face as she covered her mouth. Smiles adorned their faces then as they saw Grissom drop to one knee with the ring box open and in-hand.

When Catherine began to nod emphatically and drop to her knees with him, the CSI's exchanged bright, beaming smiles and went on their way. Just before they entered the locker room, Greg yelled out in a cartoon-like voice, "God bless us -- everyone!"

The groans of the other three were drowned out by the locker room door closing.

* * *

FINIS 


End file.
